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The Best Intentions

Platonic!batfam x ftm!reader

Series Tags: angst, eventual fluff, re-finding found family, EmotionallyNeglected!Reader, Reader is 18 and a senior in high school (my math may be off but I tried my best), ooc!batfam (just to be safe idk), kidnapping, violence, descriptions of panic attacks, language, character death/mentions of character death (Jason), beta reader? what's that lol

Synopsis: It’s been six years since your parent’s divorce and four years since your father gave your mother full custody of you. You’ve been nothing but a monthly bill to your billionaire father and a memory to the siblings who knew you. But after inciting an internal investigation into your neighborhood’s corrupt police force and getting yourself kidnapped, your father breaks his silence to invite you back to the manor you grew up in for your own safety. Old memories and new faces clash as you try to make sense of the man your father is and if you should even try to fit back into his life. Or will he continue to keep you at arm’s length, leaving you to be the empty chair once again.

Chapter Tags: references to kidnapping/bodily harm, jokes about self-harm

A/N: I've updated the masterlist to include the map of gotham and layout of the manor i am using as reference for this fic but as this is their first appearance i'll include them here and in every update going forward!!

.⋆♱𓆩𓆪 Gotham City Map 𓆩𓆪 ₊˚⊹ ♱ ཐི❤︎ཋྀ ♱ ₊˚⊹ 𓆩𓆪 Wayne Manor Map 𓆩𓆪.⋆♱

[start] | [prev] || Part 2: Testing the Waters (wc: 20k) || [next] | [masterlist]

The manor held something louder than an absolute silence for the first night in five years. Alfred noticed the change when he left the kitchen after washing your plate and cup. He paused in the middle of the large Great Hall, the echo from his polished shoes still ringing through the empty space. But they weren’t as hallowed as before, because you were there.

It seemed to breathe, low and slow, like a deep comforting slumber after a long spout of insomnia. Wayne Manor has held darkness in its corners and halls since Martha and Thomas’ deaths. It was a darkness that was decades old and grew more present when the manor was empty or the night grew too long. It was a darkness that Alfred was used to, much as he refused to acknowledge it.

So when he realized that the darkness wasn’t as cold as it should be, he couldn’t help but pause. Alfred knew the possibility that any night could be the night Wayne Manor becomes completely swallowed in the darkness, the emptiness of a manor unhomed. It was unlikely, but a butler must always be prepared. Even if that preparation was for something as grim as the reality that no one returns home.

But now, you are here. You, as a simple thought that the manor wasn’t completely void of life, brought an ease to the darkness that curled in the corners. A subtle warmth, a reminder, of something to return home to. You may not feel the love your father and siblings felt for you, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there; that you weren’t tethering them to return home. Ever since you were born you had that kind of pull, a power all your own you don’t even realize you carry. The power to bring someone home.

Alfred couldn’t help smiling to himself, a warm chuckle of soft delight leaving him before he continued on his way. He entered Bruce’s study and approached the old grandfather clock with the familiarity of an old friend, opening the mechanism without much thought and descending into the cave below.

Damian was already sitting at the Batcomputer, watching the CCTV footage of his family out on patrol with a map of Gotham on the side with their trackers pinging their locations in real time across the various districts of the city. His arms were crossed, his focused gaze not leaving the screen as Alfred approached to stand beside him.

“How is he?” Damian asked.

Alfred looked down at the youngest Wayne for a moment, eyeing the tension in his jaw that he no doubt picked up from his father. Damian was concerned.

“He is well,” Alfred said, picking an earwig from the collection in the computer’s console. By the time Alfred inserted his com earpiece, he was met with a cacophony of grunts, shouts, and casual conversation.

“—I’m not saying it was bad—”

“You said, and I quote,” Stephanie said, cutting off Dick’s attempt to clarify his statement, “‘I’ve had better bagels in a Denny’s parking lot.’”

“I didn’t say—”

“Yes you did,” Cass cut in.

“Don’t you two have a warehouse to watch?” Dick sassed, the faint sound of someone yelling in the background. As if there were any doubt they were thrown somewhere, the sound of metal crashing followed soon after.

“Yeah, and it’s dead quiet,” Stephanie groused, “Just because there’s rumors of Two Face’s goons moving around doesn’t mean that they are.”

“Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put those rumors to rest,” Cass added.

“Sure,” Stephanie agreed, “But until then, com conversations are for our entertainment. And right now, Nightwing digging himself into a hole is perfect content!”

“I keep saying that I didn’t say that—”

“Would you like me to jog your memory?” Barbara teased, the threat of her hand on the playback button implied in her tone alone.

There was a pause, a scuffle and another vague shout before Dick responded, slightly wounded, “Whose side are you on, huh?” only to be met with Barbara’s laugh.

“That’s the—” Jason let out a grunt, there’s a brief scuffling sound before he continues, “—last time I take your ungrateful ass for a pick me up.”

“Oh c’mon, we were bonding!” Dick whined, “I take it back! It was the best bagel in all of Gotham.”

“Now that’s pushing it,” Jason replied dubiously. “It was from a bodega in Bowery—”

“Pardon the interruption to this very important discussion about breakfast bread rolls,” Alfred cut in unceremoniously, “I have an update on the Guest as you requested.”

“Go ahead, PennyOne,” Bruce replied, his voice stern and rough as usual as the conversation quickly quieted with Alfred’s interruption.

“The Guest ate his meal entirely with no evidence of any deception,” Alfred started, “He was still awake when I came to collect the dishes. He seemed a little on edge, as if something was worrying him. He was fidgeting with his hands under the blanket.”

“Nightmares?” Bruce asked.

“I don’t believe so,” Alfred said, “If I had to make an assumption, I believe the Guest is experiencing some insomnia brought on by the stress of the day. I offered him sleeping pills but he declined. If he is still struggling to sleep when I do my rounds, I’ll be more insistent.”

Bruce let out a sigh. Whether it was out of relief or wariness, it was anyone’s guess. After a moment, he spoke, “Thank you PennyOne, keep me updated.”

“Of course, sir.”

And with his job done, Alfred muted his com before he turned to Damian. He gives the boy a firm pat on the shoulder before leaving to start on his nightly butler duties. On the other side of Gotham, Bruce and Tim stood on the corner of a building overlooking a dimly lit street with the occasional driver passing through.

However Tim wasn’t watching the street so much as watching his mentor watching the street. Usually Damian would be patrolling with Bruce, but since he was grounded from all nightly activity until next week, the others had been on a rotating schedule. And it was just Tim’s luck that he was with Bruce after the evening they just had.

If Dick was here he'd know what to say. He was always good at saying the right thing to people, especially to Bruce. Tim wasn’t so good with words. He wanted to say something but what exactly can a seventeen year old say to a guy in his forties trying to rekindle his dead relationship with his son?

“Something on your mind?”

Tim flinched, surprised by Bruce’s sudden timbre voice that sliced through the tense air like a hot knife through styrofoam (he’s gotta stop letting Steph show him those videos).

Tim crossed his arms uncomfortably, “Nah, nothin’.” He puts his gaze out to the street, the pause awkwardly long before he adds, “Just…” Tim hesitates.

“Robin—”

“You did the right thing,” Tim quickly blurted out, his shoulders tense as he continued to talk quickly, “Hiding this from him, pushing him away—there was no better way to make sure he would be safe and—and I’m sorry.”

Bruce lets the words drift in-between them for a moment, studying Tim’s tense posture as if he was waiting for a bomb to go off.

“Why are you sorry?” Bruce asked.

“I…I don’t know,” Tim admitted with a shrug, “Felt like the best thing to say. Given the circumstances.”

Tim knew Bruce didn’t want anyone’s pity, but it’s hard not to feel sorry for a man in his situation. With an ex-wife that knows your secret identity and a child who can never know for his own safety, jumble in the series of adopted wards and a dash of child conceived prior to a divorce, and it would fuck up anyone’s personal relations. Not to mention breed serious insecurity issues.

Not that Tim noticed that about you at first. You wore your mask well. You didn’t even flinch at the sight of him. As the most media centric of the Wayne children, there was no doubt in Tim’s mind that you knew who he was when he followed Damian to the skate park. You played along with Damian’s lies like you didn’t know any better. And despite your act, you never showed any ill intention to him or Damian, as if you were getting to know people you always knew you’d get along with.

But the moment you entered the manor, it was like the mask couldn’t keep up with the change in environment. Tim had no doubt that you carried both love and resentment for your former home and of course those complicated feelings would carry over to the inhabitants. Tim had no idea what could be going on in your head right now. But he does know one thing.

“If you feel guilty, don’t,” Tim said, “(Y/N) doesn’t need your guilt, he needs his dad. You had your reasons and he’ll never understand that.” He gave a thoughtless shrug of his shoulders, “You gotta just get over it—”

Tim’s mouth clammed up tight as Bruce suddenly turned to look at him. Yeah, probably not the best idea to tell one of the most obsessively detailed men in the world to “just get over it”. Tim flustered, holding his hands up defensively, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“You’re right.”

Tim’s mouth clams up again. His mouth opens and closes a few times as his eyebrows furrow in hesitation, “I’m what?”

“Right,” Bruce admits, albeit with all the tone of someone who both doesn’t say that enough. “(Y/N) doesn’t need my guilt, he needs his father. I should just… ‘get over it’.”

“Okay now that you say it, I can hear the—”

“Robin…”

“Shutting up, you got it B—”

“Thank you,” Bruce says instead.

Tim stares for a moment and can only nod, left stunned once again. He only looks away when Bruce returns his gaze towards the streets below. Tim gives Bruce a quick heedful glance before turning his head to look behind him. He finds your neighborhood immediately, it wasn’t hard to find now that he knew about it. Tim can’t help wondering how many times his eyes glaze over your home to focus on the bright lights of flashy villain attacks and the dim underbelly of their lairs where they lie in wait.

How long have they had their back to you? Was that your mother’s intention? Was it your father’s? If you weren’t a Wayne, would they even be looking your way?

Tim would like to think not. They would have found out about the corrupt police precinct eventually. And that you didn’t need to involve yourself at all if you just waited a little longer to act, if you had a little more faith that the Bats would handle it.

But you didn’t.

And Tim can’t help feeling responsible for that.

You gasp awake, blind in the dark with a throbbing heart. You bolt upright, scaring the shit out of Ace as he jumps up onto his feet. He begins to nudge his snout into your tear covered face, licking your cheeks and nose as if trying to say “I’m here, you’re okay now”.

It takes a few minutes of Ace licking up your tears and sweat before your heart finally evens out and you let out a long tired sigh as you pull your knees to your chest with a quiet murmur of comfort to yourself, “It was just a dream, (Y/N), it was just a dream. It wasn’t real.”

But it was real once. Very, very real.

Your hands ring around the phantom feeling of zip ties around your wrists, as if the skin was still raw and burning. It was just skin and scabs now. Carved in deep from where the ties dug extensively into your flesh. You start to pick at the edges of a scab as your mind begins to wander.

You can still smell the damp decay of the basement they held you in. You remember trying not to cry when they hit you, when they threatened to start breaking bones, when they talked about what they would do to you with hot rancid breaths against your ear. They would paint you a picture of your mangled body laying abandoned in that very basement, going into immense detail about how the rats would start eating away at you.

And how you’d still be alive to feel it.

You hiss in pain, flinching as you look down at your wrist. You’ve picked off another scab. Again. Fresh blood begins to leak out of the barely healed wound, curling down your wrist in a steady stream. You curse under your breath as you search around for something to press against it.

You end up using the bottom half of your shirt and press against the wound, cursing yourself again for making yourself bleed despite knowing better. You get up without thinking too hard about it, ready to go to the kitchen to search for the first aid kit.

It isn’t until your bare feet hit the cold marble of the main staircase that you register what you’re doing. Just because your mom had your first aid kit in the kitchen didn’t mean Alfred did anymore. He could have moved it anywhere in the manor after you and your mom left.

Which means to find the first aid kit, you had to find Alfred…somehow.

You could remember the layout of the manor in its entirety, but Alfred’s location was always a mystery to you. He’d always find you first, as if he had a sixth sense for when someone was looking for him. Though it seems now the sense has dulled from lack of use as Alfred is nowhere to be found in the dark and quiet manor lit only by the blue hue of moonlight.

You decide to head to the kitchen anyway, Ace’s clicking paws echoing the soft pads of your feet as the only noise in the dead air. Even if Alfred wasn’t there, you could still look for the first aid kit in the kitchen like you first thought.

The kitchen was quiet and cold, the usual warm glow of the lights and from the stove was absent. It sends a shiver down your back at the unfamiliar oddness of seeing the kitchen so inhospitable, though you know, logically, it was just because the lights were off. Even so, you can’t stop yourself from seeing it how you always remembered it.

Warm golden glow from the afternoon sun streaming through the window, perfectly capturing the floating dust motes like scattered stars. The smell of something sweet was always wafting through, even if nothing sweet was baked that day. As if the kitchen itself held that sweet homey scent in its walls. Alfred would stand at the stove like a captain of a ship, keeping everything aligned just right for a perfectly timed cast off where all the food would be ready at the same time. And in you would come, running in to see one of your most favorite people with a story to tell.

“Poppy! Poppy!” you run in hollering, covered in dirt and mud from the garden to cling to Alfred’s legs.

Alfred looked down at you as he made your and Dick’s lunch on the stove, a soft smile on his face and warmth in his gaze, “Yes my darling?”

“Dicky found a huge beetle—like this big,” you released his legs, only for a moment, to spread your arms as wide as they could before holding onto him again. “Can we keep it?! Can we Poppy?”

Alfred hummed in thought, pretending to think it over as you pull out your best puppy dog eyes, “Hm, that might be difficult…taking care of a beetle that big is a lot of responsibility—”

“I can do it! Promise!” you pleaded, “Pretty please! I’ll take good care of him!”

“Hmm,” Alfred hummed again before addressing the guest that had just walked into the kitchen, “What do you think, Master Bruce?”

Your head spun towards your dad as he barely crossed the threshold, clearly back from the office, as a gasp and smile would break from your lips. You released Alfred entirely, running up to Bruce and are immediately swooped up and tickled as he said, “Think about what, Alfred?”

“Dicky found a beetle, Papa!” you quickly explain, bouncing in his arms with childish joy, “Can we keep him? Please, Papa?”

“Keep who? Dicky or the beetle?”

Your weak little punch and frustrated pout at your dad’s joke did nothing to stop the laughter at his own joke. Your cheeks puffed out a little as you huff, “Both, Papa. Don’t be so mean.”

Bruce would laugh and say, “Yes of course, I’m sorry sweetheart.”

You smiled so brightly as your dad walked you out of the kitchen, excited to show him the beetle your older brother found in the garden. You talk his ear off about how excited you were to name him and take care of him forever, your dad laughing all the way.

You find yourself smiling at the childish memory, shaking your head fondly as you walk further in and begin to search for a first aid kit. As you search, the memories of that day keep flowing like an opened tap of word association. You remember that you named the beetle Humphrey and Alfred helped you identify him to be an Eastern Hercules Beetle. You fed him what you thought bugs ate when you were eight, a bunch of flowers and leaves. You were utterly broken when he died two months later, totally inconsolable until you had your funeral for him. You made Dick, who was thirteen at the time, give a eulogy and had your dad bury him under the ash tree at the edge of the estate where Dick first found him.

It was all a little ridiculous, but that’s what made you so fond of that day.

You hear a sudden noise from outside the kitchen in the midst of pulling open drawers and cabinets.

At least you thought you did.

The sudden sound gave you enough doubt to freeze mid drawer pull and strain your ears to listen. You try to hear past the ambience of the fridge, the sound of your own breathing, the palpitations in your chest—it only seemed to wind you up more.

You know logically that you are in the safest place in all of Gotham. You were in the home of the most wealthy man in probably the entire northeastern United States, who probably had the best security system in the world. Hell, even Peter moved like he was professionally trained and he was just a random Wayne Security Guard.

But you also thought your house was safe and look where you are now.

“Ace,” you whisper into the night, quietly as you can but still loud enough for the German Shepard to perk his ears up and look at you. Your eyes never leave the kitchen door. “Seek.”

Ace obeyed the command and you watch as he slips soundlessly through the door to check the house for intruders. It gives you a bit of relief to know the command actually worked. You never had a reason to use it when your father told you about it the day after one of your parent’s heated “discussions”.

“She’s seven, Bruce, I’m not letting our seven year old daughter be alone in this house!”

You don’t mean for the memory to come to you, in fact you do your best to push it far far away. To stop being four feet tall and peeking through the gap of your parent’s bedroom door to watch your parents fight as your father packs his bags for a work trip. But it’s like your mind wants you to remember the memories you’ve suppressed. They can only be pushed down so much.

“She’s old enough to cook for herself,” your father argued, not pausing for a moment as he methodically layered more clothes in his suitcase.

“She can barely reach the stove!” your mother replied.

“Ace will watch over her. He’s trained to—”

“A dog, Bruce? You’re leaving our daughter alone with a dog.”

“For three days,” Bruce snapped back as an especially hard toss of a pair of pants into the bag soon followed, “I’m not negligent Alice.”

Your mother scoffs, “Could have fooled me.”

“If you’re so worried about her, you stay with her,” Bruce shortly replied, his frustration seeping into a tone that was usually much calmer.

“I would if I could Bruce, you know that. My work is important—”

“And mine isn’t?” Bruce spat sharply, flinging a shirt into the suitcase as he spun around to look at your mother.

There’s a pointed silence before your mother turns her head and mumbles just loud enough for your father to hear, “At least my work is sanctioned.”

That causes your father to yell, making you jump and tremble at the rumble of his usually calm timbre. He points an accusing finger towards your mother, “I am doing this for her, it has always been about her!”

You take a few quivering steps back from the door as your mother shouts back, “Don’t feed me that bullshit, Bruce, I know what this is really about—”

“Hey.”

You jump at Dick’s whisper behind you, spinning around to look at him as your parents continue in the background. You look up at him, fidgeting with your night gown as he puts a hand on your shoulder, his blue eyes studying you with a troubled furrow, “What are you doing up, Peanut?”

Your eyes flick down to the duffle bag in his hand and your heart sinks with knowing. You look back up at him, dejected, “You’re going too, aren’t you?”

Dick’s eyes avoid yours guiltily, but before he can confirm it, the door suddenly swings open and you both turn towards your parents. Bruce is frozen at the door, looking down at you with eyes you don’t recognize. They’re distant, closed off—he wasn’t the father you knew right now. He was someone else entirely.

Your mother calls your name in a soothing coo as she moves fluidly around your father to carefully kneel in front of you, “Baby, why are you up?”

“I…” you glance at your father and look away just as quickly. Just seeing him somehow brings tears to your eyes, like when you disappoint your teacher at school. “I don’t know.”

In the end, your mother leads you across the hall to your room to tuck you in. You spare a glance to your father, only to watch him ignore you and walk down the hall with a purposeful pace and a “let’s go” to Dick as he passes. Dick could only offer you a mournful look, before following Bruce down the hall into the dark.

With your blanket tucked up to your chin, your mother gently rubs your chest as she waits for you to shut your eyes and go to sleep. You gather the courage to ask, “Were you and Papa fighting about me again?”

“Oh baby,” your mother soothes, “Me and your dad weren’t fighting. We were…discussing.” Your mother sighs and adds, “Being by yourself is a big deal, sweetheart. I don’t want you to get scared—”

“You don’t have to worry Mama!” Her rubbing motion halts as you say, “Ace will be with me!” You sit up as you add, almost frantically, “And—and Poppy taught me how to make oatmeal, and—and how to make eggs. I’ll be okay, promise.”

Your words meant to easy your mother’s worry only made her sadder as she pushes your hair back off your head to press a kiss to your forehead—

You startle out of your memories at the quick sounds of footsteps out in the kitchen hall, holding your breath as your heart suddenly lurches into a speeding pulse. You stiffen in anticipation but the footsteps disappear just as quickly as you heard them.

“Ace?” you whisper-yell. After hearing nothing, you add a tentative, “Alfred?”

Still nothing.

You swallow and glance towards the knife block on the counter. You try to calculate the odds that there actually is an intruder in the Wayne Manor…only to give up part way through as your fear to win out. You pull a slicing knife from the block and head towards the kitchen door.

You’re probably overreacting.

You’re definitely overreacting.

And yet, you shoulder the kitchen door as slowly as possible. Your eyes dart around the darkness that envelopes the manor hall for any forms or movement. Unlike your friends, you were never afraid of the dark. The dark was comforting, normal. And despite the anxiety making the hand gripping the knife shake—you aren’t afraid of the dark. It’s what’s in the dark that terrifies you. But the dark is soothing in a way you can’t explain. As if reassuring you that if there was a danger hiding in it, the danger would be too bright, too loud, for the darkness to hide. That the darkness wouldn’t want to protect anything that could bring you harm.

That soothing feeling gives you the resolution to walk out into the hall. Your free hand runs against the wall molding, the knicks and nail holes giving a familiar comfort. You remember racing down these halls, trying to beat Dick and Jason to be the first in line for Alfred’s freshly baked cookies.

You knew that they would let you win every time and you abused that fact persistently as a child. You find yourself smiling at the memory of all the times you’ve blocked the kitchen door right behind you and ate half of Alfred’s batch before they were able to move the chair from the other side with brute force. Jason would put you in a headlock as you cackled with chocolate on the edges of your mouth and Dick would take the chance to shovel as many sweets as he could into his pockets before Jason noticed and went after him next.

You follow the hall to the corner, turning to cut through the billiards room. When you enter, you pause. In addition to the billiard tables that have been there since you were born, the room seemed to have been upgraded into a gaming space. If the giant TV and several game consoles were any indicator.

Your eyes find the Gamecube, recognizing the Hello Kitty stickers you stuck on it a few weeks after your father bought it for you. It was a late birthday gift from when a business trip took him out of the city the week of your birthday. As an apology, he took a week off work and stayed in the Manor with you to play video games poorly and never leave your side.

You find yourself missing that version of your father. A bitterness curling in your stomach as you remember how the same man who let you paint his nails and sucked at Super Smash Bros, turned into someone who stopped picking you up from school and never left his study.

You continue out of the billiards room and make it out into the Great Hall, the heart of the Manor. The cool glow of the moonlight through the skylights was almost haunting if it wasn’t so beautiful. You could never explain it, but sometimes it felt like the manor was alive. Like it could feel you walking her halls and could feel your intentions. You wonder if the manor knew your intentions better than you did. If she knew the complexity this home had over your heart and the ulterior motives you carried through her doors. Would she forgive you for the transgressions you’ve brought into her very hearth?

Your eyes fixate on the lone light in the distance. A crack of light shining through a barely opened door up the main stairway across the hall from you.

Your father’s study.

It shouldn’t be surprising to you that your father still worked so late into the night. It should also be relieving as that the noise you heard earlier was probably him moving around. But it’s hard to be relieved when Ace still hasn’t returned from his search and Alfred has yet to show himself. You were hardly the most quiet person sneaking through the halls. Even as a child, Alfred was always there to catch you whenever you tried to sneak into the Great Hall to peek into your Christmas presents.

You climb the stairs slowly, cautious to not breathe too loudly and to step in slow conscious steps. You tried to tell yourself that it was nothing. That you were overreacting. That the nightmares were just making you jumpy. But your heart kept hammering away in anticipation. When you reach the door, you fix your grip on the knife as you softly call through the opening, “Dad?”

No response.

“Alfred?”

There wasn’t any sound coming from inside the study, as if it had paused long before you had made it to the door. With a slow exhale and a tightening of your hand, you swing the door open.

Damian hated being bored. As someone who was raised and trained to be primed for action, sitting idle while your family patrols the city was torture. Damian had half the mind to complain that his grounding was a cruel and unfitting punishment for the minor crime of meeting his half-brother. In Damian’s mind, he had every right to hunt down and meet the boy who shared blood with him.

If you were to ask him, Damian would say he tolerated you. He gave you passes with his physical boundaries that only Jon had the clearance for under the excuse of how you were raised. If his undercover snooping into your daily life taught him anything, it was that you were a magnet for physical affection. Whether that be through rough housing with your friends at the skate park or via hugs that last approximately 9.48 seconds by the owner of the diner you frequented. It seemed to Damian’s observations that if you lacked any physical affection you could very well wilt and die much like a house plant with no access to the sun.

So, of course, he let you do whatever you needed to get your daily dose of physical affection. It started with hair ruffling, given to him as a reward for learning a new skate trick you showed him or for not saying a rude quip to your friends. Then came the arm over the shoulder, usually if he said something you thought was funny or you wanted to pull him against his will into a conversation with kids his age. And finally, a hug. Just one, prior to the one tonight.

It was the day Damian revealed his true identity to you as your half-sibling. He didn’t know what came over him, just that by the time he realized it, it was already done. He never meant to get this close to you, to become someone you looked after like the other neighborhood kids his age. He just wanted to watch you, see what you were like after staring at a portrait of you on the gallery wall. He never expected that he’d grow fond of you.

What won him over in the end was your blasé reaction and fond smile at his admission. You pulled him into a hug, revealing that you knew all along who he was and you were glad to have finally met him properly. And for once, Damian wasn’t the first to pull away. He stayed in your arms for as long as possible, not acknowledging until then how much he wanted your acceptance of him. Your acceptance of him as your kin.

He knew from that day forward he’d protect you from anything. Even if it meant he was grounded from leaving the manor outside of attending school and extracurriculars. It was worth it so long as you were safe.

Still sucked ass though.

The elevator slid open, Damian walking absentmindedly out into the hall as he continued his game of Sudoku on his phone. Damian blames all the earlier talks about bodegas and bagels for his sudden craving for something savory in the shape of a pita pocket stuffed with feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and dipped in Alfred’s homemade tzatziki sauce.

Damian used to hate the idea of making himself anything when there was a perfectly good butler around to do it. Yet this way he gets to sneak a little treat of feta to himself before tossing the spoon into the sink.

Taking the elevator from the Batcave was the quickest way to the kitchen and as Alfred was busy doing whatever it was that Alfred did, Damian was left to his own devices. The elevator shut behind him with a hiss and he pocketed his phone, letting his eyes adjust to the dimly lit hall.

In the shadows, he saw a figure, an animal. The clicking of its claws caused Damian to instinctively tense in anticipation, before the rhythm gave way to familiarity. By the time Ace trotted up to him, Damian’s eyes had adjusted. He pets Ace’s head in greeting with furrowed brows, not so much against the idea of his presence as he was confused by it.

“Why are you not with (Y/N)?” Damian questioned the Shepard. His eyes narrowed at Ace’s worried whine, “Where is he?”

Immediately, his instincts took over as all rational thought vacated as the mental image of your crime scene photos taken at the hospital after your kidnapping jumped to the forefront. Your swollen cut lip, the large bruises on your back and arms, the blood dripping down from the cut on your forehead, your eyes in that neverending vacant stare that he has seen on countless victims before.

Damian’s head snapped to the closest set of stairs—the servant stairs at the end of the hall. He didn’t pause to think as he ran towards the stairs, climbing them with a concern he had never felt before (not one he was willing to admit anyway), for if he did take a moment to think, he would have realized that the servant stairs he was climbing with such haste led to the west wing.

The bedrooms lay in the east.

Damian can’t help the questions that rush to his mind as he sprints across the upstairs floor, passing by the empty training rooms and indoor gym without a moment’s glance.

Who knew you were here? How many were there? Could Damian take care of them all by himself? How did they break in without triggering the security system?

This mansion is home to Gotham’s highest elite and houses tech that would make the United States military piss itself. Damian knows this. Of course he knows this.

But that hadn’t stopped assassins before. Hell, even he broke through the security of Wayne Manor (twice) and he wasn’t even aware of how the code acts. And if the League were to go after you—if any of Batman’s enemies were to get to you, Damian would never forgive himself.

He had to find you. Even if it would end in an embarrassing overreaction, he’ll bear the shame if it means he finds you alive and unharmed.

He throws open your door with little care if you were sleeping or not, taking note of the upturned blankets and half-unpacked bags at the foot of your bed. Damian had seen your room a handful of times, picking your locked door in order to try to learn more about the sibling no one talks about. His first impressions of you were that you were naive and way too into the color pink, it was like the girl section of a toy aisle threw up in there.

But as he went through your memories, stared at your pictures, flipped through abandoned journals, he read about a girl a lot like him. Someone who struggled with carrying a name full of legacy that defined so much yet felt wrong for you. Someone who was caught in the middle of two opposing parents and just wanting to have a life with both (of course his situation was more complicated than yours but the general feelings were mutual). Someone who felt a lack of connection with classmates at school, feeling like an outsider in your own skin. That last part was probably more personal than Damian could relate to, but he wouldn’t discover that until he saw you in person for the first time.

You were different from what he pictured. And not just in appearance, but in the way you carried yourself. You had confidence now, your shoulders no longer burdened, and so untethered from the worries you expressed in your journals. Damian hopes to one day know how you were able to change yourself that much. And if he could accomplish that one day too.

Damian walks in hastily as a boy on a mission. He checks the bathroom of your ensuite and sees it empty. When he walks to your bed to check underneath, he spots something and for a moment Damian’s heart stops dead.

It’s blood. Your blood. On your upturned sheets in dark red splotches that almost blended in with the strawberry print. It’s not a lot compared to what Damian sees on a nightly basis, but right now all he could think was that you were injured somewhere in the manor. Possibly being pursued. He had to find Alfred, he had to tell Father that there was a breach, he had to get to you before—

Damian snaps his head towards the door at the sound of paws. Ace stands in the doorway for a moment, staring at Damian. Before turning down the hall. Leading. Guiding. No doubt towards you.

Damian leaps across your bed to follow behind the trotting pup, socked feet skidding with his hard turn down the hall. He prayed that he wasn’t too late to protect the brother he barely got to know.

God, you were so stupid it was almost embarrassing. You should have known, really at this point this was on you for not seeing your father’s true intentions. After the initial surprise of being greeted by an empty room, you couldn’t help yourself from getting reacquainted with your father’s study. You place the knife down on his desk as your eyes sweep over the familiar space.

It was the same old worn down books, pressed in a clean line that felt purposeful. You always held some kind of doubt that your father actually read any of them. You see the same warm brown leather couch and matching leather chairs; the same mahogany desk exactly as it always was, facing the grandfather clock across the room as a reminder of all the time he no doubt spent here rather than with his only biological child.

Well, formerly his only biological child.

Though it seems that only you were worthy of the privilege of being ignored in favor of focusing on work.

You try not to dwell on it much as you round his desk, running your fingers underneath blindly. You smile when you feel the etchings still carved there, tracing your initials with your finger tip before finding the others.

D.G.

J.T.

Your brows furrow when you feel more etchings, unfamiliar but still shaped like letters. An I, maybe? Or a T? That was definitely a C…T.C.?

You end up crouching down to look, the lighting is terrible and you have to move your head to make sure you don’t block your only light—then you see them.

Other initials carefully carved along yours, Dick’s, and Jason’s, like a legacy you didn’t know existed. A few followed down the line you and your brothers started—T.D. C.C. While others were collected around, not so much part of a lineage as they were like branches off the same tree—B.G. S.B. D.T. And then, the freshest of the carved letters—D.W. carved right next to yours.

D.W.

Damian Wayne.

Your thumb grazes over the letters, the slight catch of the splintering wood on your skin feels like an anchor keeping you in place. You can’t help picturing Damian there, crouched under this desk like you did all those years ago, carefully scratching his initials right next to yours.

His little body curled up tight, his arms aching from holding them up long enough to scratch a few lines in before lowering them to rest for just a moment before raising them again. It was a subtle claim to a bond that you were both aware of, but one he was more prepared to embrace than you.

You wonder if he also used your father’s letter opener or if he used something else. You wonder if he got a splinter too. You wonder if he got caught like you; if your father smiled at him like he did at you rather than get upset.

You find yourself wondering more about the boy you’ve kept at a polite distance. What else do you have in common? Does he also feel lonely when your father goes on work trips? Does he stick out amongst his peers like you did?

You find yourself tracing all the letters again and wonder if they felt the same as you did when you carved your name here. If they understood the promise the three of you carved all those years ago and signed their initials in agreement.

“This is a bad idea, Jay.”

“Shuddup Squeaks, it’s a great idea,” Jason says as he continues to carve the J of his first name. “How else—” he grunts when the letter opener slips but continues on, “are we gonna have proof of our promise?”

“Can’t we just write it down?” you ask, knees pulled in tight to give your brother as much room as possible to vandalize the underside of your father’s very expensive desk.

“That’s what we’re doin’.”

You roll your eyes at his comment, “I meant on something that isn’t Dad’s desk.”

“It’s poetic.”

“You don’t even know what that means.”

“Do to.”

“Do not.”

“Do to.”

“Do—”

“Hey!” You and Jason let out a scream as your older brother’s head pops out from the top of the desk, his black hair swathing his upside down face. He grins wide at your reactions, “What are you two up to?”

“Jesus Christ Dick!”

“You tryin’ to give us a heartattack?!” Jason asked, pointing the letter opener at Dick’s grinning face.

Dick casually grabs the edge of the desk before flipping himself down onto the floor with both of you. He spins around and crosses his legs as he asks, “What cha doin’?”

“Nothin’,” you both say as Jason goes back to carving.

Dick turns his head upside down, trying to see what Jason is going, “Are you carving your name into Bruce’s desk?”

“I’m signin’ it,” Jason said as he finished off the T.

“Why?”

“None of your business,” Jason replied before holding out the letter opener to you, “Here, your turn.”

“So move your fat—Hey!” Dick snatched the letter opener out of your hand and held it far out of reach when you made a swipe for it, “Dick!”

Dick gives you an exaggerated pout, “I wanna carve my name too.”

“We’re not just carvin’ our names! We’re making a promise,” Jason argued.

Dick drops the pity act and asks, “What promise?”

You and Jason share a look. Jason shakes his head, his brows creased with embarrassment, but you cave the second you see Dick’s big blue puppy eyes, “It was my idea—”

“Hey!”

“We sign a promise that we will always be family forever and ever no matter what happens,” you continue. You drop your gaze to the wood grain on the floor, playing with the hem of your pants, “It was Jay’s idea to have us sign it on Dad’s desk.” You give an insinuating look at your brother and elbow him, “Somethin’ about it being poetic or whatever.”

“It ain’t my fault you failed English,” he responds with an eyeroll and cheeks red with a shy flush.

“Hey! I got a C minus!”

As you and Jason bicker to yourselves, Dick takes a moment to look at the letter opener in thought. Then a smile breaks out as he suddenly scoots towards you both and tries to squeeze his way under the desk, “Scoot over.”

“What? No—Oi!”

You kicked Jason out with your socked feet and a giggle as you scoot over to make room for your eldest brother, sticking out your tongue when Jason turns around to glare at you. You watch as Dick starts to carve a line above Jason’s initials, “What’re you doing Dicky?”

“I’m joinin’ the promise!” Dick declared, surprising you. “I wanna stay a family with you both no matter what too.”

You smile and hug your knees as you watch Dick carve in a D, then a G, right above Jason’s J and T.

“Hey, how come your name is on top of mine?” Jason asked when he looked under the table to check Dick’s progress.

“Because I’m older, duh,” Dick replied before handing the letter opener to you.

“In that case,” you say with a smile as you start to carve the first letter of your name above Dick’s, “I get to be on top because I lived here first.”

“That doesn’t count!” Jason says.

“It so counts!”

Once your initials are carved you drop the letter opener down into your lap and run your thumb over the three sets of letters, a warm thrum growing at the sight—only for you to let out a hiss and jerk your thumb back in surprise.

“What happened?” Dick asked, quick to take your hand and examine your thumb.

“I think I got a splinter—”

“Here I’ll get it!” Jason said as he grabbed your hand and pulled it towards him, a giant drop of spit starting to ooze from his mouth.

“Ew! Gross! Jason!”

“Hold still! It’ll get it out!”

“It will not!”

“Hey, watch it!”

“You watch it, Dickhead!”

“Dick make him stop!”

“Jay—”

“Quit squirming Squeaks and let me just—”

At the rough sound of a clearing throat, the three of you froze like deer in headlights. Your father walks into the study, leaning over the desk with a smile and a look of amusement on his face, “What are you three getting up to now?” His eyes dropped down, “Is that my letter opener?”

Your and Dick’s fingers never moved so fast, “It was Jason’s idea!”

You let out a watery laugh, your eyes having welded up with tears at one of the last memories you had of your brother Jason. One of the best too. You trace over his J reverently before finally straightening—only for the pleasant warmth to turn ice cold when your eyes catch the papers on your father’s desk.

The first thing that grabs your attention is the Gotham Academy Coat of Arms pressed onto the header. The next was your name, your current name, written in Alfred’s penmanship on a line that read: Student’s Name.

At first you think it’s an application for admission, but when you pick it up you see the words “Application for Student Transfership” in big bold lettering. Your eyes skim over the document, seeing your address is listed as the manor rather than your mom’s townhouse in the Upper East End, and that your emergency contact was changed to be only your father and Alfred. You find yourself scouring through the other documents.

How the hell did your father get his hands on your official transcripts? He’s not even listed as an emergency contact, do schools really just give these out to anyone who asks? (They don’t, Bruce hacked your public school’s database.) You see copies of your vaccines and medical visits for your transition, all things you know your father had no right to access. (Again, all stolen, Gotham PD should really start cracking down on cybercrimes.)

At first you’re not sure what to feel. You’re mostly flabbergasted at your father’s audacity to gather your records illegally all for an application to transfer to Gotham Academy. Then you feel annoyed. What right did he have to uproot your life when he never bothered to be a part of it in the first place?

There was a reason you didn’t return to the Academy once your parents divorced and you thought your father would at least have the foresight to ask before pulling a stunt like this. Shame on you for thinking your dad would ask you anything.

And why would he? You were just a child, a kid who didn’t know better who didn’t know what was good for you. That’s all you’ll ever be to him. An obedient little girl who will do whatever daddy says. Your father didn’t know you at all, didn’t even bother trying before forcing his way.

You have half the mind to throw this shit into the fireplace and leave this godforsaken manor and never darken its door again—only for the study door to swing open with a bang.

Your hand shoots for the knife you placed on the desk, only to loosen your grip at the sight of a young boy with wide eyes and heaving chest, “Damian?”

Damian pauses at the door, eyes on you for a moment before flickering around the space for possible intruders, then they return to you. You don’t expect him to stride in towards you and you certainly don’t expect the hard hug around your waist. His arms squeeze you tight before releasing slowly with a relieved sigh, your arms still hovering around him unsure of where to land.

“Damian?” you try again.

He tightens his hold, his voice muffled against your sleepshirt. Quiet and hesitant, like he didn’t intend for you to hear but couldn’t stop himself from saying it: “I thought you were in danger.”

Immediately you melt, arms coming down to press warm hands to his back. You start a soothing motion almost habitually as you softly reply, “I’m sorry, I’m okay Damian. I promise.”

Damian eases under your comfort and you are reminded, yet again, how young Damian was. When you first met him, you were surprised by how mature he was for an eleven year old boy. He acted like he knew the world better than most of the kids you skated with. He never cried when he fell and scraped his knee, his eyes didn’t even water when you wiped the dirt from his raw skin with an alcohol wipe.

After a moment of you running your fingers through his short dark hair, he speaks as if just remembering something, his voice carrying the ease of a warm cup of tea, “I saw your blood on the sheets.”

You pause for a moment before you remember yourself. You pull your hand back, in turn making Damian lean back to watch you look at your injured wrist. The blood was dried now but had dripped down to your palm since you had to use your other hand to hold the knife when you thought there was an intruder in the manor.

“Oh, yeah, forgot about that.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed as he gave you an incredulous scoff and pulled away. He is careful to grab your arm above your wrist as he pulls you to the leather couch. He makes you plop down and you watch him cross your father’s study to kneel at a cabinet. Opening it, it takes Damian only a few minutes to locate a first aid kit.

You have no idea why your father’s study of all places had the first aid kit and not the literally room with knives and a hot stove top but you don’t bother questioning it as Damian’s clinical movements have more of your interest at the moment.

You watch as Damian opens the box and pulls out an alcohol pad, a piece of sterile gaze, some medical tape, and neosporin. Damian carefully grabs your arm to steady it as he starts to wipe the dried blood away on your palm and around your wrist.

“Where’d you learn to do that—hiss,” you yank your arm back when the alcohol grazes the fresh wound before you are ready for it.

“Sorry,” Damian says, his hand going to grab your arm and yank it back before he hesitates. You’re not like his other siblings. He had to be more gentle with you, more kind. He waits until you allow your arm to be taken before going back to clean the blood, being more aware of the edges of your wound, “Father taught me basic aid in case of emergencies.”

Yeah, that sounded like your negligent father alright. Ready to teach basic aid to his kids so they could look out for themselves and each other rather than have him do it.

“He taught you more than me,” you comment as he tears open a new alcohol pad. This time you’re ready for the sting as he swipes over your reopened scab, “All I did was slap a bandage on it and kissed it better.”

Damian hummed at your reference to his skinned knee incident a few months ago. He squeezes neosporin on the freshly opened gauze pad evenly as he comments, “I did not mind it.”

You find yourself smiling a little at that. You watch as he tends to you, your eyes flicker from his hands to his face. Bowed in concentration, his sharp eyes soft with careful concern, he works with practiced ease that reminds you of Dick and Jason. As the older ones, they always said it was their job to look after you. You can’t help feeling a little silly to have your little brother tending to you in the same way.

“You know,” you start as Damian begins to wrap bandages around the gauze. You hold the end in place for him as he tears off some medical tape, “usually it’s the older brother who takes care of the younger brother.”

“If you are implying that you feel guilty for needing my aid, don’t,” Damian said, clocking you quicker than you thought. “You are not the only elder sibling I’ve given aid to.”

Your brows furrow a bit at that, “What do you mean by that? Why are they getting hurt so often?”

Damian freezes but only for a moment as an explanation rushes forth, “Boxing.”

“Boxing?”

Damian nods, smoothing the tape in place a few times, “Yes. It is good for stress release, I recommend it.”

You laugh a little at the thought but it’s not so outrageous that it sounded improbable. How else would your dad and brothers be in such good shape despite being white collar workers sitting at their desks all day? It would also explain your father’s unusual strength throughout the years too.

Damian releases your wrist and you look over his work as he picks up the scraps and puts away the box. You’re impressed by his skills, there wasn’t a bandage out of place, it felt secure and not too loose. You’d think this was done by an Urgent Care nurse, not an eleven year old heir to a billion dollar fortune.

Damian walks back and sits down on the couch next to you and you say, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replies.

There’s a pause before you ask, “What are you doing up so late? Have trouble sleeping?”

Damian just nods before he turns the question on you, “Are you?”

You find yourself nodding, your adrenaline finally coming down enough for the late hour to hit you. You rub at your face and say, “Yeah I just…” you hesitate.

You can’t exactly confess to having nightmares about being kidnapped to a child, you don’t want to worry Damian more than you already have.

“I’m too used to my room back home, you know?” you lie. “I’m not exactly Strawberry Shortcake who gets cold if it gets under seventy degrees anymore.”

Damian nods. He did read about how testosterone can affect the human body’s temperature, making the body warmer than those with higher estrogen levels. He stands, “You can sleep in my room.”

“Oh, no, I can’t do that,” you quickly deny.

His eyebrows furrow, “Why not?”

“I—well—”

Damian grabs your hand and pulls you up, “Come.”

You don’t resist.

The rough snarl of the Batmobile’s engine echoes through the cave as it comes to a smooth halt back in its rightful place. Bruce and Tim hop out with a casual flare that should look ostentatious if it wasn’t done with the same impulse as one would have jumping over a pothole on a Gotham sidewalk. They approached the other Bats, Bruce’s hands going to his cowl to pull it off, “Sitrep.”

The two pairs look at each other before Stephanie gestures to the boys, “Ladies first.”

Dick and Jason think nothing of the comment as Dick supplies a summary of their patrol, “North Gotham and the East End are normal by their standards, just some thugs and vagrants trying their luck.” Dick glances at Jason for a moment before adding, “We also heard chatter about a possible deal going down in Bowery sometime this week.”

“How credible?” Bruce asked.

“Very,” Jason stiffly responded.

Bruce nodded, “Keep me informed.” Jason doesn’t respond as Bruce’s attention turns on the two girls, “Anything?”

They both shook their heads, Stephanie speaking up first, “Absolutely nothing, B. We sat at three of Two Face’s warehouses and the worst we got was a health code violation and some rats.”

“After Two Face was transferred to Blackgate on good behavior, there’s been no physical evidence of his resurgence as a Gotham crime lord,” Cass added. “Only rumors.”

Steph looks over, “Do we think he really changed this time?”

“For now we’ll have Oracle keep an eye out for any activity from Two Face or his men outside of hearsay,” Bruce said, “We can’t afford to be distracted by baseless rumors.” Bruce headed over to the Batcomputer, sitting down as he said, “Go get some rest.”

The Batkids share a look with one another. Usually after they gave their situation reports for the night, Bruce would return the favor with his own findings. Bruce only neglected to mention his own findings when they were bad. Very bad. Jason approaches Tim and asks him directly, “What’s the old man hiding?”

“Huh?” Tim asked, confused, “Nothing!”

“Bullshit,” Jason said as the rest of them crowded around Tim, “You two were patrolling through the Upper East Side.”

Tim glanced to the side, he knew what Jason was asking about, what all of them were concerned about. You. Damian gave them the location in the Upper East Side where Jason rescued you from your kidnappers (against Jason’s wishes), tonight Bruce and Tim were meant to follow up and find any clues or evidence as to who was behind it. Tim crossed his arms and repeated, albeit more solemnly this time, “We found nothing.”

“Then look harder—”

“We turned the place upside down, Jason, there was nothing there,” Tim emphasized. It took Jason a moment to realize what Tim meant by nothing. “No blood, no fingerprints, no evidence, nothing to prove there even was a kidnapping in the first place.”

“You calling me a liar, Drake?” Jason scowled. He put a finger to Tim’s chest, “You weren’t there, you didn’t see the fucking state he was in—he was barely fucking conscious when I got there!”

“I’m not doubting you—”

“Oh so you’re doubting him then,” Jason said, waving his hand dismissively as he turns to the rest of the Bats, “Timothy Drake, everyone—”

“I’m not doubting (Y/N) either!” Tim argued. “That’s not what I’m trying to say!”

Jason spins around to spit more venom in Tim’s face when Dick puts a hand over his mouth to cut his words short, Dick’s eyebrows furrowing, “Then what are you trying to say, Tim?”

Tim let out an exasperated sigh, running a hand through his hair, “I’m trying to say that this whole thing is deeper than just some corrupt cops. They’re—They’re too organized, too thorough. It’s one thing to clean up a crime scene, that’s expected—but for an entire precinct that gets nothing but positive reviews from the commissioner despite (Y/N)’s claims that this has been going on for years—”

“Are you saying this is some kind of cover up?” Steph asked, surprised, “And Commissioner Gordon is in on it?”

“No way,” Barbara piped up through the comms, “My dad would never cover for corrupt cops.”

“I agree,” Bruce put in from the computer, typing away furiously, “Someone is going over Gordon’s head to protect this precinct. This isn’t just about having someone inside the Gotham PD, there’s something bigger going on.”

There was a pause, tension growing as all the detectives arrived to the same conclusion. Corrupt cops within the Gotham PD were a dime a dozen, you can’t catch them all but they’re so disposable that any of the weekly villains will use them and toss them just as quickly.

But a whole precinct? That had to take years of work, decades of corruption that had been buried so deep the entire tree was rotten, not just the apples. It was an asset carefully hidden amongst the grime and crime that the city was known for. And you just went and shined a big ol’ spotlight right on it.

“What do we do?” Dick asked, the resolution in his voice echoed within the Bats around him, sparking a mutual protective wave.

“We keep him safe,” Bruce answered, “Keep him far away from the Upper East Side until this matter is solved.” He turns towards his kids, “Until then, never leave his side and he doesn’t leave the manor without an escort.”

There was a collective nod and with that, the matter of what to do with you was decided without your say. A necessary evil as it was for your safety, it was a call they were all willing to make on your behalf. You’d understand. That’s what they all told themselves as Dick and Jason left to return to their own homes while the rest stripped themselves of their gear and climbed out of the cave to head to bed.

Bruce was the last one to walk down the hall, Alfred behind him to make sure he actually went to bed rather than sneak back into the cave to continue working. In his defense, someone was after his kid and whoever they were would stop at nothing to make sure his son was dead. He’s already lost one son, he wasn’t going to go through losing another. Not after he tried so hard to prevent that from happening.

“Master Bruce.”

Bruce blinked out of his thoughts, realizing that he was staring rather intensely at your closed bedroom door. He catches Alfred’s eye for a moment before clearing his throat and opening his bedroom door as casually as possible after staring at your room dejectedly, “How is he?”

“He is sleeping peacefully now,” Alfred said as Bruce began to change into his sleepwear. Alfred paused as he considered for a moment if he should say more. He decided to offer Bruce a choice instead, “Would you like to see him before going to bed?”

“What?” Bruce asked, surprised in the middle of taking his shirt off. He lowered it back down as he said, “No, I—he should rest. I don’t want to wake him.”

“I assure you, he is very much at rest,” Alfred said. At Bruce’s hesitation, Alfred urged softly, “You should see him safe, Master Bruce.”

Alfred knew how Bruce’s mind worked better than him sometimes. He knew how his mind tended to lose itself in the dark of his bedroom, overanalyzing every moment, every clue, until eventually Bruce would leave his bed to return to his work. And with a son in danger, how could he not get lost in the “what if”s and “what could be”s. Jason was enough of a warning. He wasn’t going to lose you to the city too.

Bruce nodded, “Alright.”

Bruce hesitated when Alfred walked past your room and down the hall before following after him. They walked past Dick’s open bedroom, Jason’s shut one, Tim’s with the light peeking through the crack in the door, Cass’ door that is cracked open just a hair—before arriving at Damian’s room. Alfred didn’t knock as he turned the knob gently and pushed the door open.

The sight took Bruce’s breath away for a moment.

In Damian’s structured room, with the comforter half off your shoulders, you lay in Damian’s bed. The small boy was curled into your side, arms curled inward, with your arm up around his back as his head rested on your shoulder. Your other hand rested on your stomach, rising and falling with each steady breath, your head turned towards your half-brother as if you were watching over him.

The breath Bruce released was shaky.

It was a tiring day at the office and another fight with Alice over what was best for you that made Bruce want to lay down and cease to exist for a moment. He should have been more worried when he came back to a quiet house and the east wing was lacking laughter and loud conversations.

He opened his bedroom door, tie already loosened, only to be greeted by his children passed out dead to the world on his California king bed. Jason had his mouth wide open, breathing hard but not exactly snoring, his shirt raised over his stomach and limbs stretched wide. Your head rested on his arm, hands and legs curled in tight as you faced your eldest brother. Dick had his arm over both of you loosely, his fingers curled in the edges of Jason’s shirt so if either of you moved he would know.

Bruce stared for a long time. Then he walked over and sat on the edge of his bed, careful not to wake the three of you. He carefully moves the hair from your temple—

“Dad?”

Bruce blinked back into reality, suddenly finding himself sitting on Damian’s bed with his fingers having just brushed some of the fringe from your brow. Your eyes are barely opened in sleepy squints, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “What are you doing?”

You move to sit up, but Bruce gently coaxes you back down with a soft hush and a gentle stroke through your bangs, “Shh, nothing sweetheart, go back to sleep.”

You try to fight against the sleep that is pulling you deeper and deeper, only to give up part way through as the pillow hugs around your head too perfectly. You barely register how Damian cuddles closer, your arm instinctively coming up higher to support him as you sleepily mumble, “Don’t go.”

“Damian’s not going anywhere, darling—”

“No,” you say with a long whine, your free hand reaches out to grab the end of his sweatshirt, “Don’t go, please.”

Bruce feels his chest tremble with a deep ache. You sounded so soft, so scared. So small. Like you were just a child again, begging him to stay when he tucked you in at night. He would always lie, say he would; only to wait until you to go to sleep and slip out to go on patrol. Sometimes he’d find you passed out in his study, waiting for him to come back after waking up to see him gone.

He eases himself closer, one hand grabbing yours as the other runs through your hair again, “I’m right here, sweetheart. I won’t go, I promise.”

Your eyes are still barely open as a few tears stream from the corners. You’re so tired, your body feels so heavy—but the nightmares still terrify you. And even though you hate the man your father is, he’s still your dad. He’s still the dad who played video games with you, who let you keep a bug in his house and buried it for you when it died, who didn’t get mad at his children for scratching up his father’s old desk with childish carvings. He read you bedtime stories and snuck you cookies behind your mom and Alfred’s back. He was everything to you once. And maybe, deep down despite all the pain he caused you, he still was.

You needed your dad back. Just for the night.

“Promise?” your voice cracks at the end.

Bruce nods, carefully thumbing away your tears, “Yeah, sweetheart, I promise.”

Only then do you finally close your eyes. Bruce sits by your side as your breaths slowly start to even out with every gentle brush of his fingers through your hair. It’s only when he’s sure you’ve finally returned to your blissful sleep does he lean down to press a kiss to your forehead before standing up.

He doesn’t make it far though as when he rounds the bed to head to the door, a small hand snaps out to grab a fistful of his sweater with a very tired, very aware, “Father.”

Bruce turns to stare at his youngest, “Damian.” The stare off lasts a long moment, Damian’s sharp green eyes glaring at his father pointedly before the man says, almost as a joke, “Did you want a goodnight kiss as well?”

Damian’s grip falters in surprise before he says, quietly, “Don’t be ridiculous.” He gives the sweater a tug, “Lay down.”

“Damian—”

“You promised.”

Bruce let out a halfhearted sigh, not even bothering to fight him as he pulled up the covers to squeeze in next to him. Bruce was barely on the bed and couldn't help commenting, “There’s barely any room.”

“Buy me a bigger bed then,” Damian huffs, satisfied as he rests his head on your shoulder again.

Bruce lets out a huff of a laugh as he turns on his side, arm under his head, “I thought you didn’t allow sleepovers in your room.”

“I am allowed to give out exceptions,” Damian responds. He wiggles a little as he gets comfortable, “Goodnight Father.”

Bruce chuckles, “Goodnight Damian.”

Bruce’s eyes drift over Damian’s form to rest on the part of your face he can barely see. Your skin was still glimmering with tears that hadn’t dried, but your expression was calm once again. You let out a slight hum as you turn on your side, scooping Damian into your arms closer like he was a precious teddy bear. Damian adjusted easily, letting you do whatever you needed to in your dreamless slumber.

Bruce studies the pair of you. Two blood sons that were never meant to meet, practically inseparable in just a few months time. He dwells for a moment on what could have been. If he had both sons from the start, how deep could your bond have been? He wonders if you would have been this protective of Cass and Tim when they joined the manor, if you would have treated them like your little siblings as you have with Damian.

Damian had the advantage of being young, your older brother instincts can’t help itself at the sight of him. But Cass and Tim are only a year and a few months younger than you, they were practically peers rather than siblings. If Bruce didn’t push you away, they could have been your best friends.

Bruce always rationalized that letting you go was the best thing he could have done as your father to protect you from the darkness he carried and fought at night. But now he is witnessing the consequences of his actions in real time…and he hates himself for the choice he made in letting you be out of his sight. He decides at that moment, laying halfway off of Damian’s bed with an arm protectively over the pair of you, that he will never let you go again.

You were always sensitive to light. So when the morning light shined through the windows, it didn’t take long for you to wake up. You let out a groan as you turn on your side, facing away from the sun in hopes the little shade your body gives will allow you enough darkness to return to sleep. It doesn’t, but it was still nice to pretend that it was.

You hear the door squeak open, followed by a voice, “Good, you’re awake.”

You caution open one eye, your sleepy glare did nothing to dissuade Damian from entering the room and standing over you. He was as proper as usual, dressed for the day ahead despite it being only twenty minutes after sunrise as if he wasn’t also awake in the middle of the night like you were.

Curse children and their ability to run on less than four hours of sleep.

“Get up,” Damian orders, “Alfred has made breakfast.”

You whine, closing your eyes again as you pull the comforter up your shoulders, “I’m not hungry.”

“You will be,” Damian responds. He stares at you a good moment before clicking his teeth, “Tt, you’re acting like a child.” He pulls at the comforter, yanking it off of you, “To think I thought you were worthy of praise.”

Despite the harsh words, his tone was soft as if he didn’t mean a single thing he said. You call him out with a limp point of your finger and shut eyes, “You love me.”

“I tolerate you.”

You turn your head towards him, peeping both eyes open with a smile as you see your baby brother with his head sharply turned to the side and his arms crossed. A flush burning his ears a red so bright, you probably could have seen it all the way from Metropolis.

You sit up with vigor, satisfied with teasing Damian for now, as you hop to your feet with a pleased smile. Damian huffs at you as you two start to walk out of his room, “Wipe that stupid smile off your face.”

You laugh a little in response, still smiling away. You find yourself drawn to the bandage still around your wrist. Still tightly wound despite you sleeping with it on. As you two approach the stairs to head to the breakfast room, you gently grab onto Damian’s sleeve, “Hey, Damian?”

He pauses and turns to look at you.

You struggle for a moment. It’s been a long time since you were open about your fears and thoughts, especially with an entire community riding on your statement. How can you possibly show the cracks when you were supposed to be a leader? You never explicitly told Damian what you were going through, and he never pressed. For the first time since your kidnapping, you woke up with a smile and laughing. All because he was there, looking out for you without asking any questions.

You smile a bit, “Thank you. For taking care of me.”

He stares at you a moment before glancing to the side in faux nonchalance, “Tt, as I said, you aren’t the first elder sibling I’ve had to care for.” He looks at you, “We are brothers, it is to be expected.”

You smile a bit and laugh, “Still, I’m glad to have a brother like you.”

Damian nodded with a soft, barely present smile, “Likewise.”

The pair of you continue your lighthearted conversation as you approach the breakfast room, a much smaller dining room meant for a few people during more casual mealtimes outside of the grand dining room on the main floor. Though when you finally cross the threshold, you feel a cold wash of reality crashing over you.

You spot your father at the head of the small table, his eggs and toast with raspberry jam currently untouched as he looks over the papers in his hand with his free hand curling over his mouth. You can see the Gotham Academy letterhead embossed on the paper from the back and you remember the grim reality hovering over you.

Bruce looks over as Damian enters the small dining room, taking his seat next to Tim as your father gives you a warm smile that makes your stomach twist into knots, “How did you sleep?”

You urge yourself to be calm, tightening your hands into fists as you count to ten. You can’t be explosive right now. You need the leash to be loose enough so you can slip free before it has time to become a noose.

“I slept well,” you replied, tone level despite the hot rage boiling under your skin.

Your movements are slow, controlled. Not at all the light and carefree air you had when you were alone with Damian earlier. You sit next to Cass in the only available seat, thankfully a few heads down from your father.

Bruce nods, returning to the papers that spelt out your entrapment, “Good.”

You copy Damian’s movements almost to the letter, only grabbing some pieces of toast and the butter after he had. It was obvious you were hesitant, something Damian couldn’t understand as you were just fine earlier. It was just family here. Why didn’t you feel safe?

Cass watches you closely. She considers her talent for reading people to be a curse. What use is talking when your body gives yourself away just from the way your shoulders twitch? She can’t help it sometimes, it’s hard to resist when it’s so convenient. Such as now, looking at you the sibling she idolized from your paintings on the gallery wall, reading your emotions so easily it was like reading a children’s book.

You had no reason to hide the minute twitches that no normal person could see. Not like Damian who was raised from birth to reveal nothing. Getting a read on Damian when he first came to the manor was like translating a book you couldn’t open.

You were like a book who wouldn’t shut. You practically screamed how uncomfortable you were sitting at this breakfast table, despite calmly chewing on some toast and staring out into space. She could see the tension in your jaw, an anger so deliberately pressed down it felt like a boiler building up more and more pressure until it couldn’t take it anymore. Cass felt guilty for how well she could read the dissonance and upset you felt sitting here, like you were a prisoner rather than the person Cass wanted to be like the most.

You startle a little when Cass speaks to you, almost dropping your buttered toast as you turn to look at her. She’s staring at you expectantly and you realize she asked you something you didn’t hear, “I’m sorry, what’d you say?”

She gives you a small understanding smile as she repeats herself, “I have a recital next week, I’d love it if you could come.”

“Oh,” you say with surprise. You feel a flutter of warmth at the invitation, at the choice, given to you by someone who had no obligation to. You smile, “Yeah, that’d be fun!”

Cass smiled back, the question easing you to relax again as you started a conversation with her about her recital and her role in the production. Bruce watches with a relieved smile. He was worried when you came in so tense earlier, but it seemed to be just early morning nerves from it being your first breakfast at the manor since you’ve left.

His attention returns to the letter from Gotham Academy expressing your transfer acceptance after Bruce expedited the paperwork to have you start tomorrow on Monday. His hand goes to his chin in thought, his eyes drifting to you in your loose pajamas you’ve yet to change out of. You’d need a uniform, tailored obviously. And maybe some new clothes too, you came in yesterday with ripped jeans and a worn shirt that clearly has seen better days. Perhaps something collared would be good, maybe some slacks. Every young man needs slacks.

As Bruce begins to write down a list of clothes you will need, Alfred enters with two fresh plates steaming with breakfast. He places Damian’s plate down first, a ricotta and spinach egg bake that looks absolutely beautiful with golden yellow yolks and a side of sliced baguette. Damian says a quiet thank you before digging in.

Then Alfred came around to you and placed your breakfast in front of you. You hesitate as you know it’s not Alfred’s fault since it’s been so long. But as you stare at the plate of scrambled eggs and sausage links, you feel bile rise in your throat.

You don’t know when you started to hate the taste and texture of eggs, just that it happened after you left the manor. And no insult to Alfred as it was clear on the plates around you that he was an excellent cook and you were a picky eater as a child, but looking at everyone else’s fancy dishes in comparison to your childish breakfast made you feel like you were being belittled.

You suddenly really miss Marnie’s apple stuffed French toast bake.

Alfred was called over by Bruce before you could ask for something else, leaving you to stare at the unappetizing breakfast with an empty stomach. Before you could resolve yourself to not eating breakfast for the day, your plate was suddenly picked up and swapped with Tim’s from across the table.

You stare at the boy as he sits down with your plate of eggs and sausage, forking some eggs into his mouth like a starving man despite half of his oatmeal clearly being eaten. Tim catches your gaze as he gulps down his orange juice, he wipes the juice with his sleeve and says, “You can trade with Cass instead if you want.”

Cass nodded, already reaching for the oatmeal to switch with her breakfast parfait—you managed to stop her before she could take it and say, “No, no, it’s fine I just…didn’t expect that.”

Tim shrugs, “We trade breakfasts all the time. Eat off each other’s plates too,” Tim says as he scoops a spoon into Damian’s egg bake.

Damian lets out a cat-like hiss followed by a slew of Arabic words you couldn’t begin to translate before he hugged his breakfast to his chest and mumbled, “You’ll pay for that Drake.”

“We’re still teaching that one to share,” Tim said, gesturing his spoon to Damian, “He—hey!”

You can’t help the snort you let out, catching it with your hand as you grin at Damian’s smirk as he chewed the bite Tim stole right off the spoon. Tim goes for another bite, this time out of retaliation, only for Damian to hold his bowl up with one hand and Tim back with his socked foot. As the two continue with their bickering about sharing and permission, you and Cass share your breakfast amongst each other as you both watch the meal time entertainment.

Tim ended up giving up when Damian went to bite his arm, mumbling “demon freak” under his breath as he went back to the eggs and sausage as Damian dug back into his egg bake with smug satisfaction. You laugh a little as you take a scoop of Cass’ parfait when she offers it to you, “Man, I missed having siblings.”

It was a throw away line that you didn’t think much about as you put the mix of yogurt, pineapple, and banana into your mouth. It was supposed to be something sweet, lighthearted, but instead it sunk like a rock in Bruce’s chest. A reminder that, once again, he was the cause behind your ache. How many times did you eat your breakfast alone? How many times did you wish to wake up back in the manor? How many times did you dream of him leaving you?

Bruce swallowed before suddenly standing up, his scraping chair causing all heads to snap towards him. When he looks at you, you feel that distance again. A wall he puts up only for you, like you weren’t worthy of seeing something even after all this time.

“Once you’re dressed, (Y/N), we’re going out to buy you some new clothes and get a uniform tailored,” he says.

It doesn’t come off as a suggestion, nor a request.

It comes off as an order.

You curl your hands into your palms as your lips purse into a hard line, “Yeah, give me ten minutes, I’ll go get ready.”

If Bruce heard the mild tension in your tone, he didn’t react to it. He simply nodded, gathered the papers at the table, and left.

Tim wasn’t surprised you didn’t ask any questions, he wouldn’t be surprised if you always suspected your father was going to enroll you in the Academy once you entered his care. What Tim was surprised about, he realized as you stood up from the table to return to your room with a walk that carried a strain he couldn’t name, was that you had given in so easily.

“These are the latest in young men's fashion this season, Mr. Wayne. If I may bring your attention to the Hermes Spring-Summer collection, this cashmere—”

Annnddd you’re tuning out. Again.

There’s only so much Gothamite speak you can handle at this point in your life. Even as a kid you tended to dip in and out of conversations, your friends at the Academy’s parent calling you their little “Space Cadet” because you couldn’t find it in yourself to care about what grownups talked about.

You never clocked it until now but, you didn’t really have friends in the Academy. At least, not like you had friends at Gotham Central. Your friendships at the Academy started and ended with the school day or whenever their parents wanted to strengthen their relationship with your parents. At Gotham Central, you were able to be yourself without your parent’s names attached to you like they were a reason to tolerate you. At G.C. everyone knew who your parents were and they didn’t give a flying fuck, and your friends always ragged on your dad for being a deadbeat in order to get a good laugh out of you.

You were able to have arguments, fights about values that only matter to teenagers and then have your opinion be changed. No one agreed with you blindly because of who your father was, they argued with you when you were wrong or being stupid and you loved them for it. How can you ever go back to blind worship when you knew what real friends were like? You could barely stand the fake practiced smiles the boutique workers were plastering on in your father’s mere presence. It made you sick.

The last time you even stepped foot into the Diamond District was for a protest demonstration against the city’s tax cuts for the elites. You didn’t get arrested, but you got close. Your mom grounded you for a month when she found out…and also bought you a cake that read: “Baby’s First Protest” and gave you a crash course on protesting safely in Gotham.

Safe to say, you were not in your element and you certainly didn’t look like it either with your department store threads and general disinterest in anything your father holds up to your body to gauge the fit of before putting it into the growing pile the poor boutique assistant was carrying as she follows the pair of you around.

At this point you started to meander around the boutique pretending to look at clothes as you look at the glass windows and doors that look out onto the busy Gotham street. Men and women in pressed suits or dressed to the nines despite it being ten in the morning on a Sunday.

Every so often, you catch a few stares from passersby. People whose eyebrows furrow in confusion at the sight of you, some look away immediately once you make eye contact, a few sneer with judgement as they look you up and down. More evidence that you did not belong to this side of Gotham. No matter how much your father wished you did.

“This is a good start,” you hear your father say before he turns to you, “Come try these on, sweetheart.”

You follow the poor bouquet associate back to the fancy changing rooms as the main seller gets your father’s attention to show him some of last year’s fall collection. When you see Bruce start to walk away, you decide that now was your chance. You turn to the assistant as she starts hanging up your father’s choices, “Hey, um,” when she turns, you spot her name tag, “Ms. Diane, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the restrooms?”

“Oh of course, Mr. Wayne,” she says, putting the remaining clothes over one arm (how she was able to carry that weight on one arm was beyond you) as she starts to walk forward, “Allow me to walk you—”

“Oh no that’s okay!” you quickly reject, “I can find it myself!”

“Oh, um” she blinks, “If you’re sure…”

You nod, “Very sure.”

She seems a little hesitant but as she looks you up and down again, whatever conclusion about you she gathers is good enough for her as she points back the way you both came, “Take a left down that hall, men’s restrooms are on the left.”

“Thank you so much,” you say with a smile as you walk out of the dressing rooms and make a left down the hall. “I’ll be right back!”

You walk a few feet before looking over your shoulder. Seeing no one is looking your way, you hurry towards the employee-only door next to the bathroom. You barge right in, ignoring the surprised look of the boutique staff and their claims of “you’re not supposed to be in here” and instead find the employee entrance.

You push the door open as nobody stops you. You are let out into an alley behind the boutique lined with dumpsters filled with boxes and last season’s fashion that didn’t sell. A few employees on their smoke break stare at you as you look between the two directions of the alley before you turn to one and ask, “Nearest subway entrance?”

He juts his thumb in the direction behind him.

“Thanks,” you say as you start to hurriedly walk out the alley before spinning on your heel with a sudden thought, “Oh! And if anyone asks, you didn’t see me.”

And with that, you disappeared from sight around the corner.

“So let me get this straight…”

Jason gives his friend the side-eye as he continues his pull up reps in their shared dingey apartment in the center of Crime Alley, only the occasional grunts leaving him as sweat starts to drip down his bare chest. Roy is pacing in front of him, he always paces whenever Jason decides to drop the biggest life bomb with little context and expects Roy to be absolutely chill about it.

(And he is, this is Roy being chill right now.)

“Your sister—”

“Brother,” Jason corrects.

“Shit, fuck, sorry,” Roy said, “You said that, shit, fuck—”

“Dude, it’s fine.”

“Nah man, I’m an ally! I’m better than this!” Roy argues. “Okay, fuck, alright. So your brother,” Roy stressed with a heavy pause following, as if bringing more attention to his corrected error, “who you’ve been keeping an eye on since you came back, was kidnapped and tortured by some,” Roy gestures wildly, “unknown guy and is starting to live with Bruce and shit after five—”

“Six.”

“Six years,” Roy corrects, “And you’re just—” he stops pacing to gesture at Jason, “You’re just expected to fuck off and not see him ever?!”

Jason pulled himself up and grunted, “Pretty much.”

“What the fuck man?!” Roy shouted as Jason continued his pullups. Roy glared for a moment in silence, watching his best friend continue on like this wasn’t his little brother that he’s been looking out for from the shadows since he returned to Gotham.

That was how Roy found out about you. He noticed how sometimes during the night, Jason would cross the bridge into the Upper East Side and go radio silent for hours, before returning like nothing happened. Roy followed him once and caught him watching you walk home from your friend’s house. At first, Roy thought you were a possible case lead, but when it became obvious you were just an ordinary highschooler, Roy got a little creeped out.

“Dude,” Roy said, landing on the roof next to Jason after following him for the past week, “This is getting creepy.”

“Shut up,” Jason responded, his voice modulated by his helmet, his eyes never leaving your form as you continued down the street in the direction of your home.

Jason started to walk across the rooftops, Roy following after him, “Do you even know this kid?”

Jason ignored him as he watched you cross the street to go down an alley. He hops down to follow you, worried that you’d run into some thugs you couldn’t see in the shadows. Roy follows as he hurries after Jason as he crosses the street, “Do you even know his name?”

Jason’s shoulders stiffen as he walks, “Not yet.”

“Not yet—so are we just following a random kid?!” Roy asked, “Is there something you want to tell me Hood?”

“Would you—”

“I’d like to ask the same question, actually.”

The pair froze, caught like a pair of teenagers sneaking their way back in and got caught by their mother in the living room. Your arms are crossed in a similar fashion, an unamused stare as you look between two of the most dangerous vigilantes in Gotham like they were nothing more than misbehaving children.

It doesn’t help when Roy lets out a long, “Busted,” under his breath that Jason slaps him over the head for.

You lower your arms, not at all threatened by the pair known for their brutal justice in the form of broken limbs and (alleged) corpses, yet still hold onto your suspicions, “What do you want with me?”

Roy waits for Jason to explain as really only he could possibly explain what the fuck was going on. But when his best friend refused to respond and instead stared at you like an idiot, Roy grabbed Jason’s bicep and said, “Sorry, kid, we thought you were someone else! Be safe heading home alright—”

“Don’t pass through alleys like this anymore,” Jason spoke up before Roy could tug him away. “It’s not safe.”

Your eyebrows furrow, confused as to why the fuck the Red Hood cared about whatever dumb decision you made, “Right…” You give a mocking two-fingered salute, “You got it, Mr. Red Hood, sir.” You turn and continue your way through the shadowed alley, hopping over rotting trash and dodging suspicious puddles. You call over your shoulder, “My name’s (Y/N) by the way.”

And with that you were gone.

It took Roy four days before he was able to crack Jason open wide enough so he could talk about who the hell you were to him. Roy knew about Dick of course as well as the other Bat Kids, but he never knew about you: the one the legacy skipped over per your mother’s request. The one who can never know that their family protects the city at night.

As far as you knew, your brother Jason Todd was dead as a doorknob and to keep you safe, that’s how it should stay. Roy understood the reasoning but it was still so fucking unfair. Jason looked after you the second he returned to the city, even before he died he looked out for you. He was the only one who wanted to still be in your life and say to hell with Bruce, but because he was dead to you he couldn’t be.

Until Damian and Tim provided him with the fake cover of “Peter the Wayne Security Guard”.

“Peter, really?” Jason said as he read the ID card for the first time.

“We figured it’d be easier to remember since it’s your middle name,” Tim answered as Jason clipped the badge to the front of his Wayne Security uniform jacket.

“I’ve been undercover before, dingus,” Jason quipped back.

“Remember, Todd, I’m only allowing you to be close to my brother out of necessity,” Damian said with crossed arms, “I don’t like the way those brutes were threatening him and I expect you to stay on task.”

“Relax, shrimpy,” Jason said with a wave, “I’ll keep him safe.”

But Jason got too close too fast. He forgot his mission as he spent day after day getting to know the person you grew up into. You were still a goody two shoes, but now you had teeth and the fire to bite back. He was supposed to keep you safe, not encourage you to throw a match into a barrel of gasoline. Jason still hasn’t forgiven himself for letting you get hurt. He should have been there that night rather than get a panicked call from one of your friends who was with you when you got taken.

It’s cruel but that was why Jason felt like it was only fair he never saw you again, even as Peter. Jason only knew how to hurt now, protecting the public was just an unintended outcome.

Jason dropped from the pullup bar, wiping the sweat from his face as Roy looked at him with a sad, frustrated gaze. Jason glanced away, “Don’t say it.”

“Say what, the obvious?” Roy said as Jason walked past him to head to the kitchen. Roy followed, “He’s your brother, Jay. He’s family, your family, you shouldn’t be forced not to see him. So long as he doesn’t know it’s you, what's the big deal?”

Jason pulled open the fridge, pulling out the half gallon of whole milk and twisting off the cap, “Maybe I don’t wanna see him, ever think of that, Harper?”

Roy stares at Jason like he grew two heads, opening his mouth over and over like a gaping fish as Jason takes a swig from the milk carton. Roy gestures incredulously, “Did you get hit on your fucking head or something?!”

“Fuck off.”

“No, I’m serious,” Roy said, crossing his arms with a perturbed look on his face despite his dramatic reaction earlier. His brows knitted and his freckled covered face scrunched in confusion, “You’re tellin’ me that you are okay with going back to no contact with the kid you’ve been stalking for over two years? The same kid who you said was the closest thing to family you got left? That fucking kid?”

“Yeah,” Jason said, tone low and harsh. “That fucking kid.” Jason tossed the carton back into the fridge, turning towards Roy with a cold glare, “The same kid who wants a brother that’s dead, not me.”

“You’re alive Jay!”

“Not to him I’m not!” Jason shouted back, “I’m nothing like the brother he knew just fucking—just fucking look at me,” he gestures to his too big body, the pale Y shaped scar on his chest, the slight greenish undertones of his once warmer skin tone, “I’m this close every given day to fucking losing my mind to Pit’s Madness, and you want me to—what? Act like I’m not a monster? The brother he knew is dead, I won’t ruin that memory just because I want that little shit in my shitty life!”

Roy was silent, letting Jason’s rage festered by his own insecurities slowly fizzle out. Roy held back his sigh. He knew Jason was working on himself, on keeping himself level in stressful situations and keeping his PTSD from triggering at the worst possible moment. Roy knew it was a work in progress, he didn’t expect him to be fixed overnight. Jason was a good guy at heart, a murderer sure, but at least he had morals. That was practically a luxury in Gotham. Roy knew you’d see the soft parts of him if he’d let you. Especially if you’re as chill as Jason made you out to be.

After a moment, Roy said softly but firmly, “If you think for a fucking second that kid wouldn’t be over the fucking moon to know that you’re alive, that pit gave you more than just madness.”

Jason couldn’t respond, words trapped by a tense jaw and kept down by his clenched fists. The silence stretched for a heavy moment before Jason’s phone began to ring on the coffee table amongst his disassembled guns. Jason marched over, hitting Roy’s shoulder as he passed in childish retaliation before he picked up his phone.

Seeing Dick’s name flashing on the front, he flipped the phone open and answered, “What?”

“Hey, uh, don’t panic,” Dick immediately said in a high octave that did not reassure Jason in the slightest, “but we lost (Y/N).”

“What the fuck do you mean you lost him?” Jason demanded as he crossed the living room immediately to grab his leather jacket hanging by the door, “Wasn’t Bruce’s whole plan to have someone on him at all times?”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t expect him to bolt the second a back was turned,” Dick explained as Jason held the phone to his ear with his shoulder so he could shrug on his jacket. “He’s a good kid, he should know better than to disappear like this.”

“He’s eighteen and has a deadbeat dad and absentee mom. He probably thinks he can fend for himself,” Jason said as he grabbed his keys, “Where was he last seen?”

“In the Diamond District,” Dick said, making Jason pause midway out the door. “Bruce wanted to take him clothes shopping.”

Jason pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long tired sigh. Of fucking course Bruce would take you to the Diamond District. You couldn’t stop ranting to him about how much you hated the Diamond District growing up. You hated being looked at and studied while wearing clothes that have no reason to cost over a grand, feeling so out of place in your own skin you swore if you ever shop there again you’d hang yourself. The only way this could get any worse is if Bruce—

“Please tell me the old man didn’t transfer him into the Academy,” Jason exasperated.

The pause that followed went on for way too long.

“Fucking shit,” Jason cursed as he jumped started himself back into motion, “I should have known he’d try something that fucking stupid.”

“I—What’s wrong with the Academy?” Dick asked, confused, “Or the Diamond District? (Y/N) loved going to the district with us.”

“No, dickshit, he liked spending time with us and Bruce because we weren’t fucking around,” Jason snapped. “And he hates the fucking Academy, all those brats cared about was getting close to Bruce for their parents.”

Jason swings his legs over his bike, phone once again being held up by his shoulder so he could use both hands to insert the key, pulling the clutch lever with his left and starting the engine with his right. Jason didn’t even realize Dick was processing what he said until he heard Dick ask with quiet disbelief, “He really told you that?”

With his engine on, Jason was able to hold onto his phone as he leaned back a bit. His soft reply was barely caught over the rumble of the bike, “Yeah.”

Dick let out a sigh, no doubt running a hand through his hair and starting to pace if he wasn’t already. Eventually he asked softly, as if more to himself than to Jason, “Why didn’t he say anything?”

Jason didn’t respond. It wasn’t for him to explain on your behalf.

“I knew he was acting differently but I thought it was because of the kidnapping, I—” Dick’s voice became muffled as if he put his mouth over his hand is self-deprecating distress, “God I’m so stupid—”

“You can beat yourself up for being a lousy brother later,” Jason said as he kicked up the bike stand, “I’m going to get him and bring him home.”

“Does he even want that?” Dick asked.

Jason paused, unsure of what to say.

In all the conversations Jason had with you about your family, you never sounded bitter. Instead you were hurt, grieving the family you used to have even if it wasn’t perfect. Even though you were sidelined almost daily, not only by your parents but your older brothers too, you still remember how they were when they did look at you.

That after long business trips, your brothers wouldn’t leave you alone even if you begged them to go somewhere else and let you breathe for two seconds, and your dad would sit down and let you recap everything that went on while he was away, reacting to the drama of private school like it was a soap opera. The four of you going on outings that always made you sleep on the car ride home, head on top of your brothers’ shoulders in a little pile in the back seat.

You always understood that your dad’s work was important. That’s why you never kicked or screamed or whined whenever they had to work and couldn’t spend time with you. You were patient, always so patient.

Then Bruce pushed you away.

For the longest time, you tried to figure out what you did wrong or that you’d wake up and your dad would change his mind. But days turned into months, into years. And the little girl who spent years being polite, being patient, being quiet, became a man who was rude, spontaneous, loud—the trauma still clung deep in your soul but at some point, the person you’ve become won’t let himself stay silent.

Maybe you’ve reached your limit already. The rage and grief you’ve left unaddressed for too long suddenly resurfacing all at once would drive anyone to run. Jason understood that better than anyone.

“I don’t know,” Jason finally said, “I thought I didn’t want that either.” Jason put his helmet onto his head, “I’ll call you when I find him.”

“Tim says his GPS is at—”

“Gotham Cemetery, ” Jason answered, “I know.”

Jason closed his phone with a snap, pocketing it in his jeans and pulling down the visor of his helmet. His bike roared as it tore through Crime Alley, getting onto the main road to cut through Burnley and cross the bridge into Coventry. There, the Gotham Cathedral stood proud and valiant over the souls of Gothamites who died within her city limits, scattered amongst many cemeteries both old and new. There, funeral homes outnumbered bodegas ten-to-one and the only living residents there were nuns, priests, and orphans.

There, a sixteen year old Jason Todd was put to rest five years ago.

It’s a beautiful day today. Not too hot, not too cold. Enough clouds to keep the sun from blinding you but not too many to make it dreary. The perfect day to lay on top of your brother’s grave in the middle of Gotham Cemetery if you do say so yourself.

You do your best to visit Jason often. Once a week, every Thursday after school you’d sit with him. Sometimes you’d talk, sometimes you’d just sit, sometimes you can’t do much more than a simple hello with a bouquet of flowers as the grief just gets too much. Sun, rain, sleet, hail, snow—didn’t matter, you'd always be there.

Every Thursday on the dot without fail.

It made you an easy target, having something so constant in your schedule. Your route is so unchanged, you’re surprised a drag path hasn’t formed from your school to the station to the cemetery. It was at the station that you were kidnapped. The crowd was thick with commuters heading home and your area wasn’t the safest by any means (it’s still Gotham afterall). No one saw you get knocked out, no one thought to question the men carrying a teenaged boy God knows where—you were just grateful that you were traveling with your classmate at the time who was going to Coventry to visit their old orphanage.

If it wasn’t for him calling Peter, who knows what would have happened to you. You could have been buried in this very cemetery, several headstones away from your brother instead of right next to him. You doubt your soul would have found peace at that great a distance.

Because of your kidnapping and the week following involving a lot of police questioning and statements, you haven’t been able to visit Jason for the first time since his burial. You hope he didn’t think you abandoned him during those two weeks. You hope he forgives you for not being here.

And for crying on his grave again.

Jason hated it when you cried. Not because he was cruel but because he didn’t know what to do to get you to stop. He wasn’t the best at comforting with words or physical affection like Dick was, Jason was just there. And sometimes you didn’t want words or touch, you just wanted someone to be there.

All you ever wanted was someone to just fucking be there.

Your face scrunched up as you feel the hot prickle of tears starting to form again, covering your face with your hands as you mumble, “Sorry, I’m sorry Jay I just—” you take a shaky breath, in ends in a choked sob, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

The words bubble out before you can stop them, thoughts you’ve sunk down deep in your chest for so long it felt weird not to have their weight sitting there.

You’re petrified of your own home. You’re alone with no one to rely on. You’re imprisoned in a mess that needed to be dealt with, but fuck why’d it have to be you? Why did you have to be the courageous one? Why couldn’t you let it be anyone else?

“I wanna go home,” you say between watery inhales and shaky sobs, “I want you here and I wanna go home.”

But home was tainted now with nightmares and paranoia. You can barely walk through your own neighborhood right now without feeling like you were being watched or that you were going to throw up. Marnie’s diner was full of expecting faces of neighbors and friends, all proud of you for standing up for the community, but not enough to stick their neck out too. And the manor was wrought with confusing memories and tense relationships you can’t even begin to define. Old brothers and new brothers and half-brothers—a fucking sister. Not that you have time to, with the threat to your life and your father trying to force you back into a mold you outgrew.

Home meant safety, meant being able to let your guard down, meant being able to cry without caring about how it made you look, meant forgetting that the world was complicated and cruel. There were only so many places left where you felt like you were home, one of them being on manor grounds and you doubt you’re ready for whatever shit your father had to say to you after you ran off.

You sniffle, wiping your eyes and turn on your side in the grass growing over Jason’s grave. Your hand cards through the grass, the soothing motion helping to calm your pulsing heart. You don’t hear the footsteps until the worn black boots are right in front of you, caked in the dark brown grime of Gotham and some reddish clay. You don’t look up when their wearer greets you, “Mind if I join?”

You shrug, eyes flicking to the side as Peter drops down next to you. He leans against Jason’s gravestone, not disrespectfully, but as if it were an old friend. You glance up.

When you first met Peter it was at your front door step. You were rushing out the door to walk to school only to open the door to a young man in a Wayne Security uniform. He was outrageously tall, wider than a doorway and built like a fucking truck, teal eyes that had a shape you found familiar by couldn’t place, pale scars and a white tuff, bold, against the rest of his ink black hair that curled around his ears. Your first thought was how you thought he might have vitiligo. He seemed surprised to see you as if he didn’t expect you to live in your own house. He was stiff at first, calmly asserting that he was assigned to watch over you by your half-brother. You thought the whole thing was a ridiculous overreaction by Damian at the time but you chose to play along for his sake.

You never expected to bond with the guy assigned to look after you every day. You never had someone shit talk your dad with you and actually seem to mean it, making you choke on a milkshake at Marnie’s afterschool with laughter over a dry insult that was way too accurate.

You found yourself confiding in him about insecurities your friends wouldn’t understand. You told him secrets about your homelife that not even Marnie knew the extension of. You admitted things to him you would never confess even if you were on your death bed.

“How’d you find me?” you finally asked.

When Jason looks down at you, his jaw tenses reflexively at the sight of your tired red eyes. You’ve been crying on his grave again. He swallows before he says, “Figured you’d be here.” After a pause he added, “That, and the GPS on your phone didn’t hurt.”

That got a snort out of you, a small victory. And you say with a sarcastic roll of your eyes, “Of course my phone ratted me out, fuckin’ snitch.”

Jason laughed a little as you returned to lay on your back. After a moment you ask, “Did Bruce send you?”

Jason shook his head, “Nope.”

You’re surprised. You sit up on your elbows, “Damian?”

Jason shook his head again.

Your eyebrows furrowed, really thinking hard about it, “Alfred?”

Another shake of the head.

This time your eyebrows rose, voice dripping with disbelief as there was only one reasonable answer left, “Dick?”

“You sound surprised.”

You give an embarrassed shrug, avoiding his gaze to say, “Our last conversation didn’t exactly end well.”

Oh, don’t worry, Jason heard Dick whine about it all last night. Alright,“whine” was a strong word, but how else would the emotionally constipated Jason Todd describe letting his brother emotionally vomit all over him during their patrol? Dick even started to cry a little and the best Jason could do to console him was take him to a bodega that he wasn’t even grateful for.

“Yeah, well,” Jason said with a sigh, scratching the back of his head, “Dick’s not one to dwell on shit like that.”

You sit up fully, crossing your legs in interest, “Sounds like you know him pretty well. Are you two close?”

“Um,” Jason trailed off, leaning towards a vague enough truth, “we were closer when we were younger but kinda drifted when he left for Bludhaven. We only recently got on friendly-ish terms again.”

“You knew Dick as a kid?” you ask, “Were you at the Academy with him?”

“I, uh,” Jason flubbed. Great, now he was making up this shit on the spot. Good luck keeping up with a lie you just made up, genius. He decided to continue with giving a vague truth, “Y–Yeah, not the same year though so—anyway, uh,” change the subject, change the subject, “you, uh,” Jason’s eyes flicked for something—anything to talk about. Like maybe your shirt or pants or—

Jason’s blood went cold, eyes locked onto the skin-toned bandage around your wrist.

“Did you get hurt?”

Your hand instinctively went to your wrist, your fingers ghost over the tighter elastic bandage Alfred put on you before you left the manor this morning. You look down at it, “Yeah, um, just picked at a scab on my wrist. It’s fine though, see?” You pull up your sleeve to show him better, “Damian patched me up and it’s not bleeding anymore.”

Jason took your wrist gently, thumb gliding over the textured bandage with a sigh through his nose as he mumbled, “You gotta stop pickin’ at your scabs, Squeaks.”

He said it like an afterthought, too focused on your wrist to have heard the nickname glide from his lips. But you caught it. How could you not? It was like hearing a sound you thought you would never hear again, a nostalgia that runs so deep you didn’t even know it could be triggered by something as simple as a nickname.

It settled in your chest. Heavy, but not dragging. Like when a pet lays on your chest, it was warm, comforting, familiar. Something that makes you dare not move or breathe as the slightest movement will disrupt the peace and the comforting weight will be gone.

“Glad that little demon brother of yours is taking good care of ya,” Jason said. When you didn’t respond, lost in your own head, Jason frowned, “Hey, you good?”

No reaction.

“(Y/N).”

“Hm?” you blink, staring up into Jason’s eyes. A blue so close it makes you doubt, but too green to be his, surely.

Right?

“Where’d you go, cowboy?” Jason teased, though his eyebrows and flickering gaze revealed his worry, “Everything okay?”

Finally, the spell broke. You pull your wrist from his hand with a not at all convincing, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, I uh,” you laugh a little, even though the thought is more bittersweet than humorous, “saw someone else for a sec.”

You shake the comparison of the Wayne Security Guard you know and the brother you’re grieving from your head; knowing how wrong it was to compare someone living to someone dead and instead try to refocus back on the conversation.

“So Dick asked you to find me and take me back to the manor?” you asked, more as a recall than as an actual question as you think that’s what you were talking about before.

“Sort of,” Jason replied. He turns to face you completely, “I told him I’d find you, make sure you were safe, and take you home.”

Your eyes narrow slightly, muddled by the statement, “So you are taking me back to the manor?”

“I’m taking you home,” he emphasized. “Wherever that is, is up to you.”

You blink, finally understanding what he meant. You look away, not sure what to think, where to go. In the end, your eyes turn downcast under Jason’s patient gaze as you muse, “What if I don’t have a home anymore?”

Jason was silent for a moment before he confessed, “I thought I didn’t either.” You turn to look at him and he smiles a soft, familiar smile that makes your head hurt and your chest ache. Then he says, “Until I got to know you.”

You stay perfectly still as he reaches out his palm, it’s rough against your hair as he tussles it with a familial affection that fills a void that’s been left empty for far too long. Jason admits in a soft voice, “I haven’t felt like I’ve been home until you came back into our lives.”

There he goes again. Saying something that hits you so deep it makes you question everything you know about life and death. As he pulls his hand away, your eyes glance towards your brother’s tomb stone and it finally hits you who this man is to you.

“Jaybin,” you say casually as you sit upside down on the garden bench, watching your older brother as he hunts for rocks to use in his new slingshot. When he hums in vague acknowledgement, you add with a swing of your feet, “When I die, I’m gonna send someone to look after you.”

“Huh?!” he said with a spin and a glare, dirt all over his cheeks and his blue eyes as wild as he is. “The fuck you mean ‘when I die’, you ain’t dyin’ before me.”

“But what if I get into an accident?” you say breezily with kicking feet, still upside down with blood rushing to your head, “Or get super duper sick and have to stay in the hospital?”

His face hardened, the stone in his hand digging into his palm as he tightened it into a fist, “Why are you sayin’ all this stuff?” His shoulders rise slightly in anticipation, “Are you sick?”

“No, silly,” you say as you right yourself, slightly dizzy from all the blood rushing back down, “Whoa.” You blink a bit and say, “It’s a, uh,” what was it your dad called it? “contuincy.”

“You mean contingency?”

“That’s it!” you declare with glee as you point at him. You tease with a grin, “Shoulda known you’d be all smart and stuff from all the books you read.”

Jason rolls his eyes, “So your contingency plan when you die is to send someone to look after me?”

“Yep!” you say, beaming. “That way you won’t miss me too much!”

“That’s so stupid,” Jason scowled, face furrowed with angry embarrassment as his cheeks turned rosy, “I wouldn’t miss you at all, stupid.”

“Would too,” you tease with a smile, “All you do is hang around me whenever you and Dad get back from a business trip.”

“Yeah, well,” Jason grumbled. “Still stupid.”

He goes back to searching for rocks as your attention drifts instead to the rose bushes nearby. It’s as you’re rubbing their velvet petals that you hear Jason murmur something under his breath that makes you smile. But you ask him to repeat it anyway, “What was that?”

“I said,” Jason stressed, slightly louder but still grumbled against his will with his ears burning bright red, “I’m gonna send you someone to look after you too.”

You feel the tears prickle as you smile. Actually, you’re beaming brightly as you laugh just a little at how bittersweet the memory was. You turn towards the man your brother sent to look after you in his stead and say with a smile, “I’m ready to go home, Peter.”

Jason smiles. He stands and holds his hand out to you, “Let’s get going then.”

When you take it, it feels like you’re starting over with conviction. You entered the manor knowing that you were going to love bombed and swarmed by reminders of how your father treated you as a bill. You knew you would feel conflicted towards everything and everyone despite the fact that you care so much. That despite everything you still wanted Bruce to be a dad to you again, to be the dad he was before your parent’s divorce and Jason’s death.

But knowing and experiencing were two different things. And you weren’t at all prepared for the way your heart and mind would react to being around the family who left you. But now you know, now you are prepared. You weren’t your family’s little girl anymore, haven’t been for close to two years now.

You won’t let your life be defined and your peace uprooted because someone else thinks they know what is best for you. What defines a home for you.

That manor is your home. Despite every lonely night, every missed birthday party, every argument, every instance where you wondered if you would ever be something more than an empty chair—despite everything.

It’s home.

And right now, curled up on a window seat in the billiard's room where you used to wait all those years ago, sat a young eleven year old boy with his knees tucked in tight and his chin pressing on top.

He’s waiting for you.

Damian is waiting for you to come home.

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Tag List: @wendee-go @demon-master-zero @jealouscupcake @chairoart @yeo-haengja @a-taken-url @pianopuppygirl @uniquenicefangirl

A/N: goddamn this one was a hefty one huh? thank you sm for all the kind words on part one!! im glad this series is something people look forward to see updates on! you'll be excited to know that ive laid out all the chapters and itll be six in total!! (and maybe an epilogue if i feel like its needed we'll see) thank you so much for reading!! (also please lmk if the taglist worked its my first time doing it!)

divider credits (in order of appearance): @k1ssyoursister @cursed-carmine @sisterlucifergraphics @strangergraphics-archive

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